2024 Cavalry FC and CPL thread

[shermanator]

Originally Posted by MegaErtz

I'm not trying to throw shade on the league, but let's be real here. The club is a toy for the Southern family. There's a reason the team in Edmonton folded.

Do we have any idea what the expenses and revenues are? Total player salaries, ticket revenue, sponsorships, anything? I have a very hard time believing that the team isn't bleeding money. Eventually these things need to take off and become self sustaining.

Cavalry is not a toy for the Southerns. It's purpose is to bring more people into Spruce Meadows year round rather than relying on their inheritance and a few tournaments to fund Spruce Meadows. I don't know why they would think that owning a soccer club would generate money but they aren't in this game for their own amusement. This isn't Europe where sheikhs throw around money as a vanity project.

And you're right, there are lots of reasons why FC Edmonton folded, but most of them are from the complete disaster that was their NASL experience, including:

- Marketing heavily only to bring supporters to a stadium with football lines, yellow end zones and stands 30 yards from the pitch
- Moving to a 1200 seat stadium with football lines in 2012, which would stay until 2014 when the city paid to upgrade the turf.
- Trying to skirt the development process which prevented them from building the additional stands in 2013.
- Alienating youth clubs in the city by stealing their best players for their own academy.
- Spending millions to produce occasional SD broadcasts on City TV.
- 5 years of boring soccer with Colin Miller as coach.
- Constant supporter drama and infighting leading to a poor match day experience.
- Not upgrading Clarke Stadium when moving to CPL.
- Completely gutting their game day experience and front office staff when moving to CPL.
- Finally, the owner walking away mid season and insisting that any new owner make their NASL debts whole, meaning the ask to buy FC Edmonton was orders of magnitude more than the club was worth.

The other ownership groups in this league, except for maybe Valour, are taking this a hell of a lot more seriously then the Fath's did. I would argue that the league folding FC Edmonton was something that was desperately needed in order to move the league forward.

I still think ownership groups need to stop promising big visions and then delivering knockoff versions of those big visions but they have done a good job trying to build a sport with so many hurdles in this country to success.

[TheIronMaiden]

Cavalry should survive past the CPL, in the unlikely event that the CPL folds.

Attendance grew by 600 a game average. Lets say those $600 bought the cheapest tickets and spent no other money ( including parking).

that would be $18,000 a game in additional revenue or $252,000 over14 games.

Again that doesn't include $10 parking, beer, fries or a bumper sticker, and is given that only the cheapest seats get bought.

The team is losing money no doubt, but they must be close to being in the black after player sales and advertising.

[shermanator]

Roster for CONCACAF Champions Cup is out. Two developmental keepers backing up Carducci. Ethan Beckford has also been transferred to the UK.

Personally I want Smith-Doyle back in place of Beckford but I wonder if there is a U-21 signing coming in.

https://twitter.com/user/status/1752391320725774584

[Ozy_Flame]

Interesting. I was hoping that since Gianstopolos is training with the Cavs (while without contract at York), he would have been somewhat of an option here.

[TheIronMaiden]

So this will be the concacaf team?

The Langley Cavalry as it were.

[M*A*S*H 4077]

Originally Posted by Ozy_Flame

Interesting. I was hoping that since Gianstopolos is training with the Cavs (while without contract at York), he would have been somewhat of an option here.

They could be buying time on a decision. Unlikely anyone other than Carducci was playing these games so no need to rush into a roster decision

I think Cavalry has the deepest midfield in the CPL, an awesome group that brings different dynamics

Looking ahead to the season I could see Harms getting some big minutes. Hopefully we’re well clear of the U21 minutes threshold much earlier this year

[shermanator]

Sounds like Leon Hapgood is going to be announced as an assistant coach with New York City FC. Tommy had mentioned they had inquiries from MLS clubs about the coaching staff on a few occasions.

https://theathletic.com/live-blogs/m.../EK7B4IZVEEfX/

[Ozy_Flame]

That is awesome, congrats to Leon! Making stars on the field and off!

[MillerTime GFG]

Ahh man...sad to see him go if true. Such a great dude, and a brilliant soccer mind. Awesome move for him though.

[shermanator]

And its official

https://twitter.com/user/status/1753146301271712168

[M*A*S*H 4077]

Orlando sold (loaned?) their striker to Blackburn today..

[shermanator]

Looks like OneSoccer still has rights to Champions Cup. So at least we don't have to worry about watching CONCACAF games in February. Looking forward to watching Forge get pumped this week.

[browna]

Sounds like OneSoccer basically didn't hold up their end of the bargain for viewership.
Mainstream TV haven taken on Canadian soccer because of the arrogance of the CSA in the past, asking for the moon. Mainstream TV also needs its production costs covered by advertisers, and advertisers only will pay for ad space based viewership. With low viewers and selling $150k of ads for the game, and it costs TSN say $250k to send a production crew to Calgary and setup at Spruce Meadows for a game. Not sustainable.


The PWHL has some more traditional sponsors jumping on the train, so have financial backing, but let's see how that goes over a few years for viewership and then TV. They really have solidified the two pro leagues and are a bit more organized, and to be honest, it's setup in a pretty transparent attempt to be owned in whole or in part by the NHL in the next 5 years, similar to how the NBA and it's franchises fund the WNBA.

The CPL teams need some of the broadcasting revenue for sure, as my guess by this time the CSB and CPL assumed that viewership and the business would be rolling at a better clip then it is and the league and teams would be making money off broadcasting by year 5-6 (of course COVID f-ed that timetable up), so hopefully they get it sorted out.

[shermanator]

Cavalry have signed U-21 midfielder Lucas Dias on loan from Sporting Lisbon. Was pretty highly rated during U-20 cycle a few years ago.

Not going to lie, this has to be the most complete roster I have ever seen in this league.

https://twitter.com/user/status/754565687509438706

[Ozy_Flame]

Hell yeah, this guy looks like a finisher!

[Muta]

Cavalry's roster is so damn deep. Crazy the level of player quality now than compared to 2019 - and that generally goes for the league as a whole too.

[Bill Bumface]

Tommy is going to have his hands full keeping guys bought in who aren't getting playing time. There is going to be some talent on the bench for sure.

[shermanator]

Nice to not have to worry about what happens in case of injury.

[Arsenal14]

I believe with Beckford transferring out to Havant and Waterlooville (which somehow was never announced by Cavalry) that brings us to 20 players signed:

GK (1): Carducci
D (7): Klomp, Kobza, Montgomery, Kamdem, Aird, Field, Harms
M (8): Camargo, Trafford, Daley, Shome, Henry, Brooks, Gutierrez, Dias
F (4): Bevan, Musse, Warschewski, Akio

3 U-21 players: Dias, Henry, Harms
5 International players: Klomp, Daley, Field, Brooks, Warschewski

Still need at least one more keeper and ideally another U-21 player to eat some of those minutes.

[Matty81]

Wow that could be a huge signing, this kid was incredibly highly touted to the point where portugal and canada were fighting over him for their youth national teams and he was getting a look and training with Sporting's first team at sporting during preseason a few years back. High end skill.

He seems to have fallen out of favor at Sporting this season as he isn't playing a ton for their u23s anymore, his development seems to have stalled. But realistically, he's not coming to Calgary if that hasn't happened. Too bad it's not a permanent but exciting potential. I'm actually really surprised to see this as a CMNT follower, would have expected him to go to a 2nd div team in portugal or somewhere else in europe, or if coming home to be playing for York given he's from Ontario. Should be fun to watch.